A Diamond on the Hand
by jomiddlemarch
Summary: There hadn't seemed any alternative- he wouldn't let her go.


They'd been married for nearly six weeks and Mary was ready to be a wife but it seemed her new husband was determined to give her the courtship he felt she deserved along with the lengthier convalescence she sorely needed. She had argued they could just as well live at Mansion House after they'd wed during the brief conversation that followed his precipitous proposal; Jed had spared a moment to give her a fond smile then and said, "I mean to give you a home, a proper home, even if you aren't to have a proper wedding," and had tightened his grasp on her hand. She was still so fatigued from her illness she'd only nodded and hadn't made any rebuttal; her limited response made Jed narrow his eyes in surgical assessment and she'd felt him shift to check her pulse with his forefinger before he traced her name in the center of her palm.

She thought she knew what Jed imagined a proper wedding would be, all orange blossom and striped French silk, a fichu of Belgian lace and a parure of sapphires as her bridal gift, a house-full of happy guests, a punch-bowl brimming with slices of blood orange studded with cloves; none of it would have suited her. She was nearly relieved the War prevented any of it. They'd had only a few to serve as witnesses and not all of them glad—Captain McBurney glowered through the short ceremony, still incensed that Jed had gotten Dr. Summers to expedite a special license in Washington City "anything for _unsere liebe_ Baroness," Nurse Hastings trying on a pout to conceal her bitterness at being passed over again for the position she coveted, Hale fatuous and glib, though his eyes softened when he looked at Mary and she and Jed had both noticed it. Emma was missed, too occupied with her work on the wards to come though she'd brought a cluster of late-blooming lilac for Mary to hold. Given the circumstances, Mary had not asked Samuel or Charlotte, unwilling for them to become the object of McBurney's ire. The chaplain had, at least, been unequivocally overjoyed to join them together and if the light in his eyes was not only for them, Mary couldn't begrudge him his own yearning.

Jed had found a proper house as he'd promised, a charming house she thought though he apologized for it repeatedly until she'd stopped him with a kiss to his cheek, just above his beard. She wasn't sure how he'd managed it all without any help in such a short time but McBurney's ultimatum had forced his hand and Jed's response had created such tension between the two she had had to agree her initial suggestion would have been the rankest folly. Jed might work under McBurney but he could not live under the same roof as the man, not without coming, again, to blows. And despite what appeared to be extravagance to her thrifty New Hampshire heart, she could not help but love the tall, narrow house with its arched, many-paned window over the front door, the twin dormers on the roof, the linden tree casting green-gold shadows on the white cladding. The rooms were graciously proportioned, which Jed wryly pointed out was most apparent for their relative emptiness, but she had replied,

"There is a table and chairs enough for us to break bread together and a bed to share—do we need so much more?"

She had not thought a man of forty-odd, a Union officer, surgeon and divorcé could blush so to hear only the mention of a marriage bed and she'd laughed aloud.

"I suppose it will do to begin with, but it's only that, a beginning, Mary."

It had been enough for her, to have a home of her own and a husband who loved her and who needn't hide his affection, but it hadn't been enough for him. She knew it, because he whispered it to her in the mornings when he held her gently in his arms and when he kissed her forehead before she slept at night. He had given up on flowery compliments within days though he found she would not laugh if he recited Keats and Shelley to her like a stripling of twenty but he had been showering her with every possible gift he could acquire, within Alexandria and from further afield, nearly every day since she'd become Mrs. Jedediah Foster. There had been a dozen little nosegays, wrapped in paper, tied with ribbon; the cut glass vase on the table beside her bed was never empty and the petals never dropped before a fresh posy was presented to her as he walked through the door. She had ribbon and gloves enough now to start her own shop, a dozen handkerchiefs with her new monogram embroidered by another's hand, whatever confectionary the mercantile happened to have in stock. A crate had arrived on the latest steamer with Schiller, an assortment of German Romantics and Michel Chasles's latest treatise, a length of silk taffeta dyed Nicholson blue, and a flask of perfume, carefully packed in sawdust, that smelled of attar of roses and night-blooming jasmine. When he brought home the exquisite paisley shawl that covered her like a queen's mantle from her shoulder to dally with the hem of her day-dress, she had put a hand on his arm and said,

"Jedediah, you are spoiling me," and had intended to tell him to stop but he interrupted.

"Impossible. How can I spoil a heart as pure as yours?" he declared, the delight in his tone entirely evident, irresistible. She allowed herself to smile at his whimsy and his expression changed.

"I know, every time I bring you something, you are thinking it's unnecessary, a luxury, too fine or too something—and it's not. Not for my wife, my dearest girl, not for you, Mary. You won't ask for anything so I must give it all to you. It gives me such pleasure, isn't that enough? Perhaps if we had had a regular courtship, I might have been less, oh, I don't know, overwhelming, but here we are," he explained.

"You less overwhelming? Now, that is impossible," she retorted and he'd put an arm around her waist, under the fold of the figured wool and drawn her close.

"I like to hear you tease. It means you are yourself again, all the milk-puddings and barley-water, those grim herbal tonics Ellen's been feeding you are helping. I means that I _was_ right, to marry you from your sickbed instead of waiting or letting him send you away," he said in a low voice. It was one she'd grown familiar with but not in every way; she had yet to hear him make even the mildest request for her to perform her marital duty, hadn't heard him cry out her name with a tender urgency, to blaspheme when she moved against him, when she clung and when she yielded.

Every night there was an affectionate, restrained embrace and nothing more. He kissed her lips but lightly and she had thought she would need to tell him directly what she wanted was the taste of him in her mouth, and not marchpane. He held her hand and stroked her cheek and in the early hours of the morning, his arm was always at her waist, holding her to him; his body could not deceive her when they lay so very close and she knew he desired her but would not risk taxing her in any way. She had married him as a widow, thank God, so she knew what she wanted and what he withheld; she laughed to herself to consider the impasse they would be at if she had been the virgin bride of her first marriage, but she had not determined just how to tell him she was tired of courting. She considered what they had just said and the look in his eyes, a patient hunger that she suspected he was prepared to endure for weeks more, until she had reached some imaginary, likely unattainable pinnacle of health. She was not that patient, not any longer.

"I am myself again and I don't want to be. I don't want to be Mary von Olnhausen anymore—won't you make me Mary Foster? That is not impossible, is it?" she said, purposefully saucy to take away any hint of reproach, entirely in earnest. She tried to tell him with her words, her tone, stepping into his arms, resting a hand on the fawn vest where it covered his heart.

"Truly?" Jed asked and it was as if they were being married again, the penultimate vow. He had worried about rushing her, that she would think he married her thoughtlessly, under duress, that he had not loved her enough but only wished to be a savior, not a husband; he had said as much in the night when he thought she already slept and she had remembered the words as she dozed. She didn't want to talk again but a nod would not be enough so she hummed her agreement as if the sound itself were delicious, "Mm-mm," and then he bent his head to her ear to speak, "Molly Foster- anything other than that is impossible, Molly." He moved again and kissed her, the kiss she had been wanting, her husband's kiss, generously possessive, his hand on her waist, reaching to caress her breast as if the muslin between them were the most ephemeral cloud. He kissed her until she could not think for the urgency of her love, until she gasped and he laughed, the most erotic sound she could have imagined and all she wanted from him.

Her nightdress collected the white petals from the camellias as they fell to the floor in the morning and she agreed to wear the necklace from the parure and nothing else when he asked, forgetting to say please except with the way his eyes watched his hands move on her hips. She read him the Chasles in French which was not as good as his but he didn't correct her except to adjust the angle of her leg and whisper, " _Comme_ _ça_ , _madame_ ," in her ear. The courtship was blessedly over.


End file.
